Chapter 199: The Black Prince And Blackbeard
The wind and snow grew larger unknowingly.
The cold wind emitting sharp whistles became sharper the higher they went, cutting the face like a knife. The light snowflakes turned into hard hail like gravel, smashing onto the shoulders with a thousand pounds of weight······ The difficulty of climbing the snowy mountain exceeded the imagination of the three.
“Phew!”
“This feeling······ it’s been a long time!”
Lucci had a brilliant yet ferocious smile on his face.
His hand grabbed the cold, slippery rock, and his fingertips felt a needle-like sting. He hadn’t experienced this sensation in a long time, but tasting this long-lost bitterness of training was exceptionally invigorating!
“Damn it! Why do I have to do this kind of thing?”
Even the knife-like sharp cold wind couldn’t stop Jabura’s mouth; his incessant complaints hadn’t stopped since they started climbing the cliff.
The chattiest Fukurou was instead the quietest. The reason was simple: his strength was the weakest. Climbing such a high peak was just a challenge for Lucci and Jabura, not particularly difficult, but for Fukurou, it was somewhat torturous.
Fortunately,
They were almost at the mountaintop.
“Hey, hurry up, move faster, you bastards, be gentle with your movements. This is Lord Wapol’s favorite diamond-encrusted toilet.”
“······What are you doing? Move aside, hurry up and move.”
Noisy and chaotic voices came from the mountaintop.
Wapol was preparing to flee. He had received a warning from Dalton. This broad-minded man, still remembering the kindness of the previous king, ultimately passed on Doctor Kureha’s warning to Wapol. At the same time, Wapol also received a report from an officer who had luckily survived among another group of remnant routed soldiers.
Realizing that terrifying enemies had come to the island and that Jess had already been killed······ Wapol lost the courage to resist.
He ordered his subordinates to pack up the treasures in the royal palace and flee directly. The Bliking submarine sailboat would wait for them at another small port. They just needed to transport the treasures to the submarine sailboat, and they could escape scot-free······
“You idiots, move faster!!!”
Wapol stood by the cableway, endlessly giving pointless commands there. The originally orderly team became extremely chaotic, which only excited Wapol more, cursing with spittle flying everywhere.
No one noticed the trio climbing up from below the rock wall, wearing white hooded trench coats.
“Your Majesty Wapol?”
“Hm? What do you want?”
Hearing someone call his name from behind, Wapol turned around and saw Lucci standing behind him. It must be said that although Wapol looked like a burly fatso, his height of two hundred seven centimeters was only five centimeters shorter than Lucci. Jabura was the same; his height matched Lucci’s at two hundred twelve centimeters.
“What are you lot standing around for? Hurry up and go move the······ Wait, I feel like I haven’t seen you guys before, especially this one······”
Wapol looked up at Fukurou standing behind Lucci and Jabura.
This figure was similar to his, but much bulkier, with a height of three hundred thirty-one centimeters that was so eye-catching. In Wapol’s memory, there was no subordinate that big, meaning this giant wasn’t a guard or attendant in the royal palace.
But there was no one else in the castle at the mountaintop!
Could it be······
“Who exactly are you people? Bastards, I am Lord Wapol, king of the Drum Kingdom. What do you lowly commoners want?” Wapol claimed to be bold, but he was scared into fleeing without even seeing the enemy’s face.
But when the enemies appeared before him and he saw there were only three, a strange surge of courage welled up inexplicably.
“Surrender obediently, and I can let you die painlessly······”
“Bang!”
Lucci’s fist shoved all the unspoken nonsense back into Wapol’s throat. One punch to Wapol’s protruding belly sent His Majesty the King flying like a ball, knocking over a dozen guards before barely landing in the snow.
“Jabura, Fukurou, get to work. No need for extra survivors besides Wapol.”
“Haha! Finally, I can have some real fun!”
“None of you are getting away, chaba chaba chaba!”
Jabura and Fukurou each chose a direction and charged in to kill. Jabura didn’t hold back, directly unleashing his fruit ability and transforming into beast form, immediately stirring up a storm of blood and gore in the crowd. Fukurou targeted the fighting champion Cromartie; the Rokushiki extension technique called “Beast Strictness,” evolved from Finger Pistol, instantly crushed this security officer.
The hardship and ordeal of climbing the sheer cliff earlier were now matched by equal pleasure.
Lucci did not join in this refreshing activity.
He stared intently at his target, Wapol, and without using any Rokushiki techniques, just purely beat the king with his fists nonstop. Though an ability user, he had no chance to use his ability in front of Lucci. The storm-like barrage of fists had thoroughly crushed him.
By the time Jabura and Fukurou finished off the last survivor.
Only four living people remained on the mountaintop.
At the foot of the mountain,
In the snowy forest,
On the sled pulled by the reindeer, Doctor Kureha instinctively looked toward the top of Drum Mountain. She “saw” auras constantly disappearing one by one, including Doctor 20’s. The auras in the mountaintop castle had almost all vanished, leaving only three intruders’ auras besides Wapol’s.
“Andel, you brat, your children······ are all too useless. Your education was a complete failure!”
Doctor Kureha pulled out a bottle of plum wine,
The 139-year-old witch faced the cold wind and drank a big gulp heartily.
“Drum Kingdom······ is done for!”
She raised the plum wine in her hand, celebrating the fall of the unpopular kingdom, even though she knew all four generations of kings in this kingdom from top to bottom.
······
Mountaintop,
“All cleaned up?”
Lucci sat on Wapol’s soft belly.
“Hey, Lucci, you didn’t kill His Majesty the King, did you?” Jabura put his hands on his hips and craned his neck to look at the unconscious king under Lucci’s butt.
“All taken care of, not a single one left! Chaba chaba chaba!”
Fukurou cheerfully answered Lucci’s question.
The mountaintop castle no longer had its previous snowy, dreamlike appearance. Corpses and bloodstains everywhere resembled a hellish painting. The tragic scene hadn’t yet been covered by the new wind and snow. The air was thick with the smell of blood, which even the biting cold wind couldn’t disperse for a while.
“Then prepare to withdraw·······”
Lucci stood up, but before he could finish speaking, his attention was seized by the tsunami-like terrifying spiritual pressure rampaging from the distance, stunning him into silence. Fortunately, the spiritual pressure’s outbreak was far enough from the mountaintop that it didn’t make him sit back down on Wapol’s soft belly.
Jabura knelt on one knee, his face pale.
Fukurou simply plopped down on the snow, his mouth agape but unable to speak.
“Th-this······ His Highness Elus!”
Lucci held his head high, unbowed by the pressure. He widened his eyes, staring fixedly toward the port. The port······ what happened? To make His Highness Elus appear personally, and······ this aura was too terrifying?
Sensing the nearly substantial spiritual pressure, he vaguely glimpsed an endless ink-green ocean suspended beneath the sky.
Humans,
Could they really grow this strong?
A sense of defeat welled up in Lucci’s heart.
Back in Water 7, that dragon hadn’t given him such overwhelming pressure. Was it not serious? Or was Prince Elus even stronger?
······
In the snowy forest,
The running reindeer was suddenly stunned by the typhoon-like spiritual pressure that barreled in, its four hooves kicking in the air as the whole reindeer felled into the snow.
Fortunately, because Doctor Kureha had been drinking earlier, the intelligent reindeer had already slowed its pace. Even with this accident, it didn’t fling Doctor Kureha off; it merely plunged headfirst into the soft, thick snow.
It had to be said that the soul accumulated over 139 years was incredibly resilient. Though she lacked strong combat ability, she withstood the spiritual pressure’s impact, shakily standing up and pulling the stunned reindeer out of the snow,
Lest it suffocate to death.
She took a swig of wine, sat on the righted sled, and cast her gaze toward the port. Her field of vision showed only a vast white snowy forest, but her eyes “saw” not the forest, but the boundless ink-green ocean hovering in the sky.
“What kind of monster is this! Even Rocks and Roger weren’t this scary!!”
The 139-year-old witch casually revealed a shocking past.
······
Long Horn Village,
The entire village’s old and young all fainted simultaneously,
Dalton, the former guard captain, was no exception. Completely unable to withstand the spiritual pressure’s impact—not only was his strength weak, but being too close to the port was an unmitigated tragedy. Fortunately, Elus only intended to intimidate, not kill······ Otherwise, this village would have been wiped out in an instant.
The voices in the village instantly vanished,
Only the crackling of firewood in the stove remained.
Outside the window was the “whoo whoo” of the cold wind.
······
Outside Long Horn Village,
Near the snowy forest by the cableway,
Kaku and the others had legs gone soft, unable to stand against the spiritual pressure’s impact. Their minds blanked for an instant at first, but fortunately, their willpower was strong enough to endure. They knelt or sat, sprawled haphazardly in the snow.
“······Kaku, this······ is His Highness Elus, right?”
Kalifa asked tremblingly.
“······Yeah, no mistake. This is His Highness Elus.”
Kaku shivered.
Once from fear, once from cold.
It wasn’t that he was timid; this thing was just too scary. Kalifa and the others seemed not to notice the nearly substantial spiritual pressure ocean in the sky, but as the second strongest in former CP9 after Lucci, Kaku could barely sense the ink-green spiritual pressure ocean in the air.
Precisely because he saw it, he felt bone-deep fear.
He deeply realized what kind of monster the Black Prince was. This was already······ He didn’t know how to describe this terrifying power.
————
On the sea,
The massive raft-type warship had appeared off the coast of Drum Island.
Drum Mountain, piercing the clouds, was visible in the distance. Blackbeard and the others on the warship also noticed the warship docked at the port with no flag, but no one took it to heart. They came to Drum Island just for supplies; an extra large ship might even mean more benefits.
Of course, that warship seemed to have quite a few strong auras.
But just fairly strong. For Blackbeard and his crew, it wasn’t enough.
Yes,
They hadn’t detected Elus’s presence.
Detecting Blackbeard and the others’ auras first, Elus deliberately suppressed his own aura along with Fran’s, preventing Blackbeard and crew from noticing until the massive raft-type warship drew close enough. Then Elus stepped out of the bridge.
Spiritual pressure,
Exploded instantly.
Like a typhoon, or a tsunami.
The heaviest possible spiritual pressure ocean hung in the sky. All living beings under this ink-green spiritual pressure ocean felt the soul-piercing terror.
Those on Drum Island had merely been brushed by the tail of the storm. The ones truly facing Elus’s spiritual pressure head-on were the only three on the approaching massive raft-type warship: the Blackbeard Pirates.
“Black Prince!!!”
Blackbeard let out a shrill, high-pitched screech first thing.
This not-unfamiliar power, which he had luckily witnessed before, let him instantly recognize the owner of that flagless warship. This force, similar yet different from Conqueror’s Haki, was mastered only by the Black Prince, Sokachio Elus.
Conqueror’s Haki could be called a stress response. The overwhelming Conqueror’s Haki resisted the spiritual pressure’s impact, allowing his two crew members behind him to breathe a sigh of relief.
The Blackbeard Pirates now numbered only three, including Blackbeard.
【Demon Security Officer】-Lafitte, 【Reaper】Doc Q. These two were crew members Blackbeard had recruited recently. There was originally also 【Fighting Champion】Gizas Burgess, an early partner he knew, but unfortunately, Elus had snatched him, turning him into material for manufacturing artificial human soldiers.
“Captain, looks like our luck isn’t great today!”
Wearing a top hat, floral shirt and black suspenders, holding a cane sword, Lafitte sighed lightly.
“Haha! Didn’t expect to run into the Black Prince here!”
Blackbeard calmed down.
The current situation was indeed unexpected. He knew from the newspaper that the Black Prince seemed to have come to Paradise, but newspapers couldn’t track someone endlessly unless that person constantly made headlines. Even the Four Emperors wouldn’t be in the news every day.
Blackbeard had no way of knowing Elus’s whereabouts.
Who would’ve thought,
He’d run into him just like that on Drum Island.
His luck was so bad he wanted to spit at himself.
“Cough cough, Captain, are we fighting the Black Prince? I feel like I’ll die.”
Looking deathly ill and wheezing nonstop, Doc Q patted his beloved horse “Strong Strong”‘s head. Yes, though there were only three people on the ship, there was also a horse besides humans.
Though his mouth said he’d die, there was no fear on the face under his soft felt hat.
“I really don’t want to fight the Black Prince at a time like this, in a place like this. That monster can fight BIG·MOM and Beasts on even terms. If I fought him now······ my chances aren’t great!”
Blackbeard said his chances weren’t great.
In other words, he still had a certain chance of winning this battle.
“Best not to fight if we can avoid it. Now’s not the time for that, but······ it depends on what the other side wants.” Blackbeard grinned and said, his gaze turning toward the increasingly near warship.
